by Robert Nye
But then, last night, Sam King came to me bearing the same story.
‘Head proposes piracy,’ he said. ‘He has at least three quarters of the crew behind him.’ ‘You heard this with your own ears?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it’s bad,’ I conceded. ‘Unless they mean business it would scarcely be such common knowledge that it could come to you. Of everyone on board, you are my man. Head must know that.’
Sam sucked at the moustache which hides his mouth. ‘I suppose he could be playing clever,’ he mused.
‘You mean - deliberately making sure I have wind of the plot? Why should he do that?’
‘To frighten you.’
I laughed. I shook my head. ‘In that case we have nothing to worry about. I shall not be frightened by a shipful of Richard Heads. Does he imagine that I am going to hand over command to him? The idiot must be mad to dream it possible.’
Sam looked awkward. Then he went on: ‘I believe he has two alternative ploys. The first is to seize command of the ship when we reach Newfoundland. His support is enough that he could steal away with her once she’s been cleaned and revictualled.’
‘Leaving me at St John?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dead or alive?’
Sam smiled bitterly. ‘From Head’s point of view that would be of no consequence. His only real difficulty would be Mr Burwick.’
‘He remains loyal?’
‘I think so. It’s impossible to be sure.’
I nodded. I was not much surprised that even my own ship’s master could possibly be bought or coerced to take part in this criminal enterprise. If we were sailing home to a monarch who had faith in us, then despite my own fate the ship’s company might be reasonably confident of saving their skins. But by now the meanest swabbers of the decks of the Destiny must be only too aware that King James was desirous of our downfall from the start.
‘You mentioned another ploy. What can that be?’
Sam sighed. He looked down, tracing a circle with his calloused right forefinger on the sea charts spread out upon my table.
‘Laurence Keymis,’ he muttered.
‘Keymis? What about him?’
‘Head hopes you’ll join him,’ Sam said.
I drew a sharp breath. ‘Then he much underestimates me, this disgusting Mr Head. He fancies that I will kill myself because he lets it be whispered about that he intends to steal my ship and turn her pirate?’
‘I heard him,’ Sam said. ‘He says you are committing suicide anyway. He cannot understand your present course.’
Something in Sam’s voice made me silent then.
At length, I said softly:
‘And nor can you.’
‘Admiral?’
‘You cannot understand it either. Sam, do you really know me? Do you really know me at all?’
My old friend closed his eyes. I saw tears on his face. ‘I’ve known you since we first rode together to France. You’re the best man I know. But I’ll never understand you. No, sir, I admit it. I don’t understand you, and I don’t think you do either. You’re sailing to your death. You’re going home to certain execution.’ His eyes snapped open. They were proud. ‘I shall follow you. I’ll be with you. Not just because you saved my life when the Encounter went down either. You know that well. You are my friend. I have no other choice. Your mind is made up and I accept what you are doing. But if I had a choice - if I could influence your decisions—’ ‘You would side with Mr Head?’
I regretted the stupid words before they had escaped from my mouth.
Sam did not flinch. He considered me levelly.
‘I would save you from yourself,’ he said, his voice a gruff whisper.
I could not meet those honest eyes of his. I sat staring at my sea charts. I drew my dagger and cut a line across the ocean.
‘This is where we go,’ I declared. ‘Mr Head will not stop me. You will not stop me. And most certainly I shall never stop myself. I gave my word. I shall keep my word. Besides, you despair too fast. That alarms me. I never knew you for a quick despairer. Your escape from drowning must have left a certain dampness in your wits. Mr Secretary Winwood—’
A forest of Winwoods cannot save you from King James! He means your destruction!’ ‘You think so, Captain?’ ‘I know so, Admiral. And so do you.’ I stuck the point of my dagger in the heart of England.
*
All day today I have brooded on what Sam said. To tell truth, his uncustomary eloquence dismays me more than these mutterings of piracy from the forecastle. Head would put a knife in my back while I slept, or have me put a knife in my own heart out of despair. Head would leave me stranded in the harbour of St John in Newfoundland, and take command of my ship and prostitute her. Sam King’s counsel, however confused, is incomparably harder to stand up to. Head would keep me from England because he is my enemy and serves only himself. Sam has served me faithfully all his life, he is my friend, perhaps the only true friend I have had. He would keep me from England because he loves me, because he wants me to live, to survive, to escape the wrath of King James.
I am haunted by a single ridiculous image.
It concerns the death by drowning of my half-brother Humphrey Gilbert.
Humphrey was one of my mother’s three sons by her first marriage, to Otho Gilbert. He was in Elizabeth’s service even before she was crowned Queen. His great aunt, Kate Ashley, had been governess to the young Bess, and Humphrey himself was attached as a young man (being my senior by some 15 years) to the Princess’s household.
Poor ambitious Humphrey. His reach always exceeded his grasp. He grew to manhood with the one obsession: to prove himself in the colonisation of the New World, to carve his name upon America. But he was obstinate, wilful, and cantankerous - altogether too rough and choleric a fellow to win the Queen’s real favour.
Secretary Walsingham disliked him. He schemed to thwart all Humphrey’s enterprises. He called him a man noted of no good hap by sea.’
Well, it irks me to admit it, but Walsingham was right in this regard. Humphrey, scared of the sea, was a bad sailor. Yet what happened? What happened was that I was responsible for persuading the Queen to disregard her Secretary of State. I owed a debt to Humphrey for introducing me to Leicester at the start of my own career as courtier and seaman. That debt I unwisely discharged - at his insistence - by getting Elizabeth to agree to allow my brother to sail at the head of an expedition, ill-prepared, worse-fated, going this way, to Newfoundland. I even obtained for his good luck a token from her Majesty. It was an anchor guided by a lady’s hand.
Humphrey Gilbert sailed these waters I sail into now. He never made landfall. Because men said that he feared death by drowning he determined on making the smallest vessel of his fleet the one in which he journeyed. Her name was the Squirrel, her draught was a mere eight tons.
In a furious storm she went down. The crew of her closest companion ship saw what happened.
Humphrey sat aloft through the storm with a book in his hand. While the wind raged about him, he pretended to be reading. Perhaps he was reading. He refused to transfer his person aboard the larger vessel. Every time they drew near him he waved them away again.
He kept shouting, they said.
What he shouted was this, they said:
‘We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.
Again and again he shouted it, till the wind got so overwhelming that his words were destroyed by it.
He drowned with his book, my brother Humphrey. The Squirrel was sunk, she was lost with all hands, and my brother went down with her, reading.
Was he mad?
Am I madder?
He died reading a book.
Must I die writing one?
We are as near to heaven by sea as by land
20
15 April
At dawn this morning, the coast of Newfoundland off our port bow, I had the trumpet sound to call the whole ship’s company together on the quarter deck. Sam King
, his hand on his sword hilt, stood on one side of me. Mr Burwick took up position on the other side. The air was chill. I had taken the precaution of having Robin lay out two shirts for my wearing, in case the cold made me shiver. I did not want the men to suppose I felt fear.
I wasted no time in coming to the point.
‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘there has been a change of plan. I have decided to make directly for England and home without taking fresh provisions aboard or cleaning the ship in the harbour of St John.’
There was a general sharp intake of breath, some few rebellious murmurings, but then silence. Looking at the gang of ruffians clustered about Richard Head, I could see that my words had left them in no doubt that I was forewarned of their intention to turn pirate.
Head himself was lounging against a water-butt. He picked at his teeth with a small curved knife. The black patch on his forehead, catching the light off the water, winked as if he had a third malevolent eye.
‘Are there any questions, gentlemen?’ I enquired.
Most of the scoundrels looked sideways at their ringleader. Head said nothing. He went on picking at his teeth with the bright blade.
It was our master gunner, William Gurden, who broke the silence. He stood apart, arms folded across his broad chest. ‘Admiral,’ he said, ‘I don’t question your decision. But I’d like to know the reason for it. Why sail for England when you told us we’d rest at St John’s?’
I nodded. ‘I will tell you why, Mr Gurden, though it gives me no pleasure to do so. We have certain gentlemen aboard who care so much for my welfare and their own profit that they would prevent me from returning to England. There is a plot afoot to seize my ship if I once put her into harbour. I am to be left in Newfoundland, high and dry, while the new masters of the Destiny traffick as pirates. Well, sirs, it is my opinion that those who have flirted with this notion have not thought it through to its conclusion. I was let out of the Tower at the King’s pleasure. I return to England to throw myself upon his mercy. Any man who acts to prevent this does more than turn pirate - he steps between me and the King. If I do not kill such a man, then King James most assuredly will.’ I paused. I looked from one face to the next in the crowd about Richard Head. I could see that my words had struck home. ‘But let us not put his Majesty to any trouble of blood-letting,’ I went on calmly. ‘As for me, I have nothing left but my honour, and I go to redeem it. If any of you is serious in this purpose to deprive me of the pleasure of a noble death let him step forward now and do his ignoble best.’
I drew my sword.
I waited two whole minutes.
No one moved.
Not one of them moved an inch.
They looked surly, they looked thwarted, they looked embarrassed. But they did not move. They did not move a muscle. Some of them stared at Head. But Head shut his eyes.
I noticed the Indian standing high in the rigging. He was gazing down impassively upon us. How much of this scene he could understand I don’t know. I suppose in the end that it spoke well enough for itself. As the minutes ticked by, his face broke into a grin.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Very good. It seems, after all, that we have no real mutineers present. I am glad to learn it, gentlemen; glad for your sake, sirs, as well as mine. We are a small enough company to cross the Atlantic without wasting able-bodied fellows by having to hang them at the yardarm. You agree?’
Some nodded foolishly.
But I was asking only one of them.
‘Mr Head, you agree?’
Head, scowling, considered the point of his knife. For a second, it looked as if he might hurl it at me. His lips were set hard. His face was as black as any thunder.
‘Mr Head!’
The rogue looked up sharply.
‘You agree, Mr Head? You agree that we have no mutiny
at all?’
Head stared at me. It appeared he was choking. ‘The correct answer,’ I said quietly, ‘is Aye, sir.’ Head said nothing.
‘Aye, sir? I repeated. ‘Say Aye, sir, if you please, Mr Head.’ Head spat on the blade of his dagger. Then: ‘Aye, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Louder.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ shouted Head. I nodded. I sheathed my sword.
‘Mr Head, you will now throw that knife of yours into the sea.’
A small but necessary moment of truth, Carew. If it was correct - as Sam King had ascertained, and I saw no reason to doubt - that three quarters of my crew had been prepared to support this villain in his treachery, then here was his ultimate chance to declare himself. I was gambling everything on my reading of the man’s character. If that black patch on his skull really signified a wound won in combat with the Turks, as Head claimed, then I might be done for.
My son, I am doubly sure tonight that Richard Head never dared cross swords with any Turk in his life. Nor even with an ancient English gentleman needing two shirts to keep his shrivelled body from the obvious effects of the ague at sea on a cold April morning.
Because.
Because Richard Head faltered, shifting from foot to foot, and then he said, mumbling:
‘But this knife was a gift from my father.’
Sam King laughed first. Then Mr Burwick. Then Mr Jones, the clergyman, a nervous fellow who laughs like an ass when he can. The laughter spread like wildfire among the men. All the tension was dissipated from that ugly scene as swiftly and easily as the mist steaming from our frosty decks in the rays of the rising sun.
I did not laugh. I did not even smile.
Overboard, Mr Head. Either you or your father’s knife. It is no great matter which.’
Richard Head shut his eyes. I observed a nerve that twitched in his unwashed throat. His cronies were suddenly silent.
Then, with a grimace of cowardly resignation, the oaf drew back his arm and hurled his knife overboard. It flashed in an arc in the sun. And there was such quiet that I heard the little splash as it hit the water.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Some of the swabbers clapped hands and stamped with their feet. Head turned aside, his chin in his chest, completely discredited. But there was more serious business to come.
Simon Taverner, our ship’s cook, a squat weasel-faced runt of a man, was the first to give voice to it. He stepped forth uneasily from his companions.
‘Admiral,’ he said, ‘you overlook one thing.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ my Captain King commanded, all confidence now.
I laid my hand gently on Sam’s to restrain him. ‘Let us hear from the kitchen. We shall need Mr Taverner’s salt beef and pickled pork. Yes, and his dried peas and beans, and even the hard biscuit with the worms in it. We have another eighteen hundred miles of ocean to cross, and a ship is no better than her belly.’
The cook cleared his throat. ‘Sir Walter, I’m your man. No mutineer. Never. But if I sail back to England then I hang.’
‘How’s that?’ I asked.
‘Murder, sir.’
‘Then you deserve it, Mr Taverner, do you not?’ Taverner spat. ‘I killed an innkeeper, that’s all.’ ‘With your foul soup?’
‘No, sir. He refused me my wages. There was a brawl. I never meant to kill the mean old bastard. I hit him with a ladle. How was I to know his heart was weak?’
I shook my head. ‘A pitiable story, master cook. But while I can see why you sailed with us, I can only condemn you for your short sight. You must have known that there would be a coming back. You have delayed your appointment with the gallows, nothing more.’
Taverner stood his ground. There was a kind of candid despair in his gaze. ‘I hoped for a pardon, sir,’ he said. ‘And I’m not the only one. Not by a long chalk. There’s plenty of us who signed on to sail with you because you promised the King you’d bring back gold, and gold meant the King would be pleased, we reckoned, and his pleasure meant pardon for past offences. But now you’re wanting us to go back to England without so much as a gilded button to buy his mercy. I tell you straight, Admiral, if we stopped off in Newfoundlan
d I’d never turn pirate. But I’d disappear, sir, Christ’s truth I would.’
‘Desertion,’ growled Sam King. ‘He boasts of deserting.’
I held up my hand. Taverner’s truthfulness had touched me. Abhor it as I might, I felt sufficient sympathy with his argument to wish to hear more.
‘How many of the rest of you must hang if we go back to England?’ I demanded.
More than a score of them stepped forward, eyes downcast, shuffling their feet. I questioned each one. For the most part, their offences were trivial. I condone no crimes, Carew. But I beg leave to doubt the wisdom of the severity of some of our English laws. Should a man deserve to lose his life for filching fifty shillings? For stealing three cows? For setting fire to his neighbour’s hayrick? The Francis Bacons of this world would say that he should, because the law is the law and a felon tears a hole in the fabric of society. I say that it is a mere spiderweb society which demands the death of such insignificant flies. Punished they must be, but not by execution. For do not the spiders, the Bacons, go free though God knows they are guilty of much greater misdemeanours? I have seen for myself how the mighty have the power to twist any law they dislike to acHicve their own ends.
Just as a moment before Richard Head had stood revealed as a coward and a laughing-stock, now this rebellious surly crew of mine, his erstwhile followers, all at once appeared to my eyes as no more than a pack of wretched fugitive dogs. I would kick a bad dog, I would deprive him of his supper, but I’m damned if I’d think it worth hanging him.
